Alex Jones’ Downfall Could Spell the End for the Disinformation Business Model

Try to imagine having a young child die in a horrific mass shooting. Now, imagine spending a decade being attacked and mocked by a mob of nutjobs who claim your child never even existed. These people show up at your home, demanding to see your now-murdered child. Some even go so far as to make rape threats and desecrate your baby’s grave.

All of these things happened in real life. And responsibility for all of those horrors that came after the massacre can be attributed to the repeated actions of one man: Alex Jones.

This week, we began to see a glimmer of hope that there might be some consequences for engaging in these disgusting and harmful lies. A jury had already found the conspiracist Infowars host liable for defamation, and this week that jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to the families (with more possibly to come at a later date). Good.